NWPM Teacher Research/TIC

Tuesday, Session 4: 3:00 - 4:30
Room 120 (Conference Room)

Facilitated by:

• Mary Cox, MBWP

Overview of MBWP's Process:

• [Note: See Mary's handouts for more information.]
• MBWP's old model: Three points of view plus reflective piece on what they learned over the summer.
  • They didn't feel this was very powerful. So...
• They started reading the Art of Classroom Inquiry by Power and Hubbard.
• They also use Living the Question, also by Power and Hubbard.
• Participants complete an inquiry project after the summer institute.*
• MBWP borrowed Boston Writing Project's inquiry format. (Here is more from BWP that looks interesting.)
  • Use a narrative format. Not just, "Did I teach this GLCE today?" but "How did I teach this GLCE today? Did it work? What did they learn?"
  • Keep artifacts. Could be tapes of writing conferences, student work, journal entries, etc.
  • Analyze artifacts to explain how they address the inquiry question.
  • Then, evaluate what you learned. is the question answered? What was learned in the process of researching it? How will the inquiry continue to progress from here?
• Several other NWPM sites are using Teacher-Researchers at Work to guide their teacher research.
• Handouts have numerous examples of inquiry questions.
• Participants "tunnel" their way to a guiding inquiry question (brainstorm lots of questions, lead to one overarching question).
• Mary brought several of MBWP TCs questions (and tunneling questions) for us to peruse.
• Mary--"True research takes time."
• *MBWP's inquiry project is part of the summer institute, though it happens after the summer institute. Nobody has ever skipped the inquiry project even though it is due after the grade is assigned.

Discussion:

• Most sites include a research project post-SI, and the project is worth 2-3 graduate credits.
• Most sites ask the research groups to meet ~4 times.
• Several sites use What Works for the research text.
• UPWP uses Becoming a Teacher Through Action Research.
• What technology tools do different sites use to facilitate research groups? Google Docs? WordPress blog? Ning?
  • Pros and cons
    • Pro: WordPress brought everyone together on one site.
    • Con: Google Docs made it too easy for participants to NOT see each other's work.
• Paula D.: Most TCs change their inquiry questions over time, often several times.
• Not all teacher inquiry is done for graduate credits. OWP is encouraging involvement with lab schools for teacher research, not connected to university credits.
  • What are lab schools?: Go watch the teachers teach, observe and discuss. (Here is Wikipedia's definition of the common usage of the term.)
    • They allow for staff development provided by the staff.
    • OWP has had many positive experiences with this approach.
    • For it to work well, it helps to build in discuss time with the observed teacher (one example involved observing the teacher the hour before her prep period, and then talking about it during her prep period).
    • This sounds like the middle school teaming concept that has disappeared from many school districts.
  • Boise State Writing Project does action research groups with TCs but not connected to graduate credits.
  • UPWP gives mini-grants to participants who apply to help support their inquiry projects.
  • Could sites grant SB-CEUs for teacher inquiry work?
• What are the pros and cons of having one group inquiry question or inviting TCs to develop their own inquiry question?
  • Could allow for small groups to work on one question together too.
  • Delving into one question for a whole group could promote TCs developing an authentic "product" like a journal article, a book, a documentary, etc.
  • What if we invited TCs to do an individual inquiry project first, and then invite them to do a second research project in a bigger group?
  • Encourage TCs to do research individually and then work on professional writing together.
    • This would make a good advanced institute! Duh-piphany!
• A smaller core group can help participants give and get deeper, meaningful feedback.

Texts to Guide Research:

• The Art of Classroom Inquiry
• Living the Question
• Teacher-Researchers at Work
• What Works
• Becoming a Teacher Through Action Research